Trying So Hard
by Na-cat
Summary: SasuSaku. Sakura always tried her hardest to get Sasuke to fall in love with her, though maybe she'd been going about it all wrong... More Sakura-centric than pairing-centric. A SasuSaku, but not exactly there yet. Potential?


Hello...This focuses around the SasuSaku pairing, but isn't exactly a SasuSaku fic. It's more about Sakura and her views on life and being in love with Sasuke. Call it introspection if you will. So if you're looking for a fic with epic love confessions, kissing or anything along those lines this isn't quite that. Though 'stuff' does happen towards the end...

This is primarily a oneshot, but it could become a prologue for a SasuSaku story.  
It partially depends on reviews. That's a hint ;D

* * *

He would arrive at the training grounds. She would drop everything and give him her full attention. "Good morning Sasuke-kun!", "How are you Sasuke-kun?", "It's a lovely day, isn't it, Sasuke-kun?". She would let him know that he was important enough for his presence to be immediately detected, important enough to be her only focus, important enough for everything around him to become unimportant.

Sasuke would walk into her sight and the rest of the world would become a dull grey, she would force her surroundings out of her mind -something very dangerous for a ninja to do. But a boy's dream girl wasn't a kunoichi. Boys liked girls to be feminine and need protection, their protection.

Girls, proper girls, were pretty, delicate, fun to be around, not too strong-minded, maybe a little dumb -in a cute way- and above all had a world that centred around their boyfriend.

Sakura didn't find herself very pretty. She was too young to have developed any shapes and the only thing anyone ever noticed about her was her huge forehead.

She was no delicate flower; if she wasn't careful of her strength, she could easily crush a man's spine with a hug.

She didn't think of herself as good company. Ino always knew how to fit with the mood, who to talk to, what to say -a regular social butterfly. Sakura, on the other hand, only knew how to follow Ino's example, on her own she never found much to say. She didn't know how to make people laugh, she couldn't think of any topics that might interest others, she didn't have any stories to tell. So she mostly stayed quiet and tried to look cute, even though she knew she would never pull off cute.

Sakura knew she was very head-strong, she had always been told so from an early age. She liked to get what she wanted, to get her own way and she hardly ever hesitated to use whatever means necessary to get there. She was also one to show her anger, her temper really wasn't something she kept in check.

Sakura was intelligent, extremely so. It showed in her school marks, but wasn't limited to them. In her everyday environment she was always able to click onto what was going on, she understood how things worked, not much appeared mysterious to her. Sure, she was no Shikamaru, but she definitely had smarts.

Sakura's world couldn't revolve around Sasuke, no matter how much it already seemed to. As a kunoichi, it was her duty to protect the village, to function on missions. She was a weapon, a human weapon. A weapon does what it was crafted to do, it must execute it's job properly, and that is the centre of it's world, not a lover. There had been several occasions where Sakura had neglected her primary function through an overbearing concern for Sasuke. It was something that had to stop or she would never make a good kunoichi.

No matter how much she thought about it, Sakura couldn't see herself balancing being both the perfect girl and a kunoichi. She envied Hinata. The girl had been born not only with bloodline abilities -assuring her the skills to become a ninja- but was also everything that was sweet in a girl.

Even if the duty to be a good kunoichi wasn't factored in, Sakura knew she could never be like Hinata. It just wasn't in her personality. So she tried sugar-coating herself, she tried to be a cute, bubbly girl that Sasuke could love, that he could easily imagine as his wife, as the woman who would help restore his clan. That was what Sasuke wanted, Sakura tried not to think about the fact that it most definitely wasn't who she was. She wanted to fight, to be a part of the action, to live at full speed not go back to being a civilian. But being a child bearing civilian was the only route she could see to Sasuke's heart. So she spent her time pushing down her urges, pushing down her desires to be strong, pushing down all the angry tempers she could feel about to show themselves. All the repressing gave birth to Inner Sakura. A person that Sakura could be. A person that leaked out when Sakura wasn't on her best behaviour or trying to appear to be Sasuke's perfect girl.

* * *

When Sasuke left, Inner Sakura and Sakura started to merge. What reason did she have to keep her other self hidden when there was no one to impress? Life went on, Sakura became Tsunade's apprentice and her true potential was unleashed. With no one to be 'the perfect girl' for, Sakura lost her fears of appearing too strong, too intelligent, too brutal, too fierce. She no longer cared about not being pretty enough, or not having the right thing to say, her fists could do the talking. With her knew mentality, Sakura's progress was much faster. The part of her energy that had once been spent pining after Sasuke was now put into her training, to becoming stronger. She did not know when she would be strong enough, maybe she never would, maybe she would never stop.

* * *

She would always remember that fateful day, the day when the new team seven saw Sasuke again. They had seen him a few months prior, when he had almost killed Naruto. But this time wasn't as epic or as tension-building. This time it was more of an accidental meeting. Team seven were travelling through a forest in the Rock country on an insignificant mission when they came across a full-blown ninja battle in an open clearing. From what they could determine, it seemed as if a group of travelling ninja had been ambushed by another. Under normal circumstances it was best not to get involved with such fights. Under normal circumstances team seven would have continued on their way. But the current circumstances were anything but normal. The ambushed group was a team known as Hawk. Sasuke's team. Sasuke was amidst the battling ninja, fighting for his life. Naruto and Sakura shared but a quick nod before charging in to fight alongside their old team mate.

With her only worry being that of Sasuke's life, Sakura held nothing back. She unleashed her brute strength on ninja after ninja rendering each one into a pile of bleeding flesh and broken bones. She seemed unstoppable, driven by her blazing fury. How dare anyone try to lay a finger on the one she had loved all these years? With a fearsome battle cry she sent the last standing enemy flying with a powerful kick.

Letting the tension leave her body, she grit her teeth and stood panting with her back to Sasuke. She couldn't find it in herself to turn around, she hadn't seen him in so long and this was her impression? What on earth would he think.

"Sakura..." Her body stiffened, she briskly straightened up. She could feel him walking towards her, getting closer. A hand dropped onto her shoulder and slid down to hold her upper arm.

"Sakura, that was amazing. You were amazing, you've gotten so strong." Her breath hitched.

"Sasuke." she gasped. He edged his body closer to hers, almost hugging her from behind.

"Sakura, you were so powerful, so strong, such brutal strength..." Oh no! Now he would think her some kind of monster! He continued :

"Sakura... Sakura, you were so beautiful as you fought. I'd never seen you like that before, you're so strong now." Now that she hadn't been expecting. Her body felt numb and her head dizzy, she found herself unable to move or even make a sound. He pulled her against him and leaned his head so that his lips were right by her ear.

"I need to leave now," he said in a hushed voice. She wanted to express her disagreement but he shushed her. "Our paths will cross again. I hope to see you become even stronger and more beautiful as you fight." And with those final words she felt his presence vanish. She spun around, but behind her there was no sign of him or his team.

"Come on Sakura, we need to get out of here, fast." called Naruto. Unable to speak, Sakura nodded and followed him out of the clearing.

As team seven left the clearing, Sakura's heartbeat finally started to slow. All this time she had hidden her potential from Sasuke. She had feared that it was a side of her he wouldn't like, that he would never see her as a real girl he could love. And now, now she knew that it was a side of her he found beautiful. Sakura closed her eyes and held a hand of her heart as she whispered :

"I will become stronger, much stronger. You will see next time we meet, Sasuke."

* * *

I wonder how many of you read until the end  
So **if** this were to become a chaptered fic, the next chapter would probably be their next encounter. Though please understand that SasuSaku isn't exactly my OTP, so I can't be sure I'll be writing much more of it.

Review, if you would be so kind :)


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